The SRM University-AP student, P Mohinish Teja from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, brings laurel to the university by bagging the first prize at the Hackathon organised this year on April 16-18th by the Cal Hacks Team, University of California, Berkeley. More than 450 participants signed up for the world’s popular code-fest. Amongst these global participants, Mohinish won the title of “Best Hack” and a prize of $1000 worth of file coins from the sponsoring partner, Protocol Labs.

The idea of the application “Eco gift” is inspired by the Undergraduate Research Oriented Project under the guidance of Dr Ashok Kumar Pradhan, Assistant Professor-CSE and Mr Santosh Bhaskara, doctoral research scholar. Mohinish developed a Waste Management Decentralised Application called “Eco gift” using Blockchain Technology that rewards the users who categorically dump the waste. This application credits crypto tokens into the app users’ wallet. Even though it will not be the traditional currency, it can be used during registration, paying application fees, and payments at the government portals. The reward value increases with time, and the individual receives the token immediately after installing the application.

Mohinish led the team members P Poojitha, P Bharani, and S Mounika into another segment of Hackathon, Civhacks, organised by the Association of Students at the University of California, Berkeley, from April 23-25th where they bagged the “Best Civhacks” title.

The team developed a website application called “Anonymous Hawk” that displays the reported news by keeping the identity of the reporter anonymous for security reasons. The reporters facing life threats for reporting on the sensitive issue can sign up on the application. One can register simply by signing the transaction into the Blockchain. The data uploaded is stored in the Ethereum network and cannot be trifled by humans or software. The free flow of the information can take place by using the application without the fear of being targeted by any influential agents.

“Anonymous Hawk” brought each group member a prize of $500 file coins. The team was granted an opportunity to work further on the project by the sponsoring team, Protocol Labs. Mohinish expressed, “We are at the initial stage of the development of the high-end Decentralised App. In the next stage, we shall work on controlling the spamming of the information using the data and web-mining algorithms.”

Pavan Krishna and S Fahad Kamraan, guided by Dr Priyanka, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, SRM University-AP, Andhra Pradesh, successfully published a research paper titled “Stock market prediction using sentimental analysis” in the Scopus indexed “International Journal of Advanced Research Engineering and Technology (IJARET)” on March 2021. Being the students of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, both researchers have apt knowledge on the sentimental analysis commonly known as opinion mining or emotion AI led to the successful execution of the research project.

Sentimental analysis is used to help find patterns in textual data, to understand people’s emotions and sentiments in a much deeper and holistic way. It is used to find the polarity of the information and to classify it under different emotion/ sentiment radar all the way from sad to happy or too excited.

The key title takes a dig into a study involving a new method of predicting stocks by performing sentimental analysis on the financial data. A sentiment is analysed on the subjectivity and polarity index by classifying it into positive and negative news. Here, to predict the real-time stock price, sentiment analysis measures the polarity or subjectivity score, respectively.

“While pursuing my minor in Business Management, I gained Financial Literacy and eventually found an interest in the Stock Market & its behaviour. At the same time, we noticed how social media plays a crucial role in deciding stock prices. Fahad and I were so intrigued that we decided to take up a Project on Predicting Stock Market Prices based on Sentimental Analysis of statement – News & Tweets”, informed Pavan.

Fahad further acknowledged that the project was a big step for undergraduate students, and it could not have been possible without the guidance and motivation of Dr Priyanka, their mentor. “Dr Priyanka was the constant support and path-bearer for us as she showed immense faith until the goal is achieved”, said Fahad.

The duo was excited after receiving high praises and acclaims for their research project. They look forward to coming up with more research ideas that can benefit society.